


Missed Connections

by La_Pacifidora



Series: My Milady/Milord Ficcy Friday Responses [2]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 06:05:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/La_Pacifidora/pseuds/La_Pacifidora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times they met, but weren't formally introduced.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missed Connections

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through the end of season 1. Originally posted at [Milady/Milord, on LJ,](http://milady-milord.livejournal.com/128354.html?thread=1204834#t1204834) in June 2010. Prompted by lilyayl, as 'five times Jeff and Annie met before Greendale.'
> 
> Disclaimer: Greendale doesn't belong to me; it belongs to all of us. But only a very select few of us make any money from it. I'm not one of those select few.

One

Jeff Winger was 17. And he knew he was damn lucky that Dawn Rosenberg had agreed to "help" him with his biology homework. Because he was 17, he wished the chapter was something a little sexier than 'cell division,' but hey, he'd take his chances where he found them.

The fact that Dawn would be helping him while she babysat the toddler of some people her parents knew through temple? Well, he could work with that.

But the fact that the 3-and-a-half-year-old was the most precocious little twerp ever born? Jeff wasn't so sure he could work with that. It was bad enough when little...Ashley? Ally? He knew it started with an 'A.' Anyways, it was bad enough that every time Jeff got close enough to smell Dawn or maybe put his arm around her, the kid popped up and wanted something: A glass of water. Help reaching the bathroom sink after she went potty.

Someone to check under the bed for monsters. (Which Jeff kind of had to admit, was funny and cute in a weird little kid way: The kid didn’t just want the made-up spiel he'd used with his little cousins. No, little What's-Her-Name handed him a flashlight and a tennis racket as big as she was and waited patiently in the doorway until he promised there was nothing.)

But Jeff was 17, and he was hoping Dawn would let him get to second base, and if that meant putting up with the twerp and her freakish little Bambi eyes, well, then so be it.  
***  
Two

Jeff Winger was a senior in college, and he hated coming home for Christmas. Not because he had something better to do or because he hated his family. Or the holiday. 

But he was getting sick of people coming to the door for charities. (It had absolutely nothing to do with the jerkwad his mom had started seeing. Not. At. All.)

When the doorbell rang for the third time in as many days (and in right in the middle of the James Bond movie-marathon he'd found on a cable channel), Jeff was pissed. He stormed to the door and threw it open.

There was no one there. He stuck his head out and glanced from side to side. No one. Nothing. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Ahem."

It was quiet and it came from the level of his knees, but he'd heard it. Jeff looked down.

One of those Madame Alexander dolls his grandmother collected and insisted on showing him every time he visited her in the home was looking back up at him. 

"What?"

"Hello. My name is Annie. I am a third grader at Greendale Elementary, and I am collecting for UNICEF. May I ask you for a donation?"

 _Holy shit,_ Jeff thought. _It talks._

"Um. Sorry. But we already gave to, uh, that."

"Lying is wrong."

"What makes you think I'm lying?"

"Every one in the third grade was given a map. No one got the same map. This street and this house are on my map." The doll held up a photocopy of what looked like a city council ward map. There was a portion outlined in highlighter. Jeff thought he could just see little check marks along the lines that were streets. "I haven't been to your house. And no one else would've come because you're on my map."

"Fine. Uh," Jeff pulled out his wallet and rummaged in the coin purse section. "Here's fifty cents."

The dolls' eyes got bigger and shiny, like it might cry.

"A dollar?"

The lower lip stuck out and wibbled. Jeff sighed. He could hear the TV in the living room; it sounded like a fight scene, which meant Double-O-Seven would soon be awoken by Pussy Galore. God, but he loved Bond movies.

"Here. Is Five dollars OK?"

The doll's eyes lit up, and it beamed at him.

"Thank you. And the little children thank you, too. Happy Holidays."

"Right." Jeff handed the doll his money and waited until it had made it down the front steps and back to the man he saw waiting down by the sidewalk before he closed the door.

Back in the living room, he saw the man and the doll walking toward the next house. He'd just sat down when the doorbell rang again. 

Jeff really hated Christmas.  
***  
Three

Jeff Winger couldn't believe he'd been roped into going with a friend from his firm to a career day at the other guys' former middle school.

But the other guy had been at the firm for five years, and Jeff figured he needed to make the right connections his first year or he'd never get anywhere.

Still, there he was, sitting at a table as group after group of 12- and 13- year olds filed by, fidgeting as their teachers told them to ask Jeff and his friend questions about being lawyers. Jeff smiled and tried to say as little as possible. 

He had a feeling the teachers wouldn't take to kindly to him telling kids to lie their way through job interviews and fabricate credentials and degrees.

As the next group came up, Jeff saw several girls who'd obviously hit puberty early give a smaller, dark-haired girl a hard time. She shrank toward the back of the group, trying to make herself seem smaller, if that were possible. Not that he could blame her. The couple of times she looked up, he could see she had a severe case of pizza face and he thought he caught the glint of metal on her teeth.

Not that, the lawyer part of his brain spoke up, her obvious awkwardness justifies the behavior of the other girls. The non-lawyer part of Jeff's brain snorted: Like girls of any age had ever made any sort of sense.

The group moved on and Jeff forgot about the poor kid. As he and his friend were leaving the school, Jeff turned down a hallway to get a drink of water. There was a girl standing at the water fountain and, as she turned away, Jeff realized it was Pizza Face. She caught sight of him and shrank away. 

The last remaining shred of humanity (that Jeff had thought he'd hidden away pretty well so far) reared its head. Jeff gave the kid a gentle, non-threatening smile.

"You were at career day."

The kid looked like she might pass out, but nodded anyway.

"Did you decide what you want to do with the rest of your life?"

She shook her head no and back up several steps as Jeff took a drink.

"Yeah. I always thought these things were stupid." He nodded to her and turned to leave, but stopped and looked back at her. "Listen. It gets better, right? But it usually gets worse first. So just, don't let them push you around. Maybe one day you'll be the cool one, right?"

She looked at him blankly for a moment, then nodded slowly.

Good deed for the decade done, Jeff turned and left the school.  
***  
Four

Jeff Winger knew he probably should've asked his client if the guy had actually been taking amphetamines. 

It was sloppy on his part to not check it out first, but it'd been a long couple of months and Jeff was starting to worry someone might find out that he had no more business being a lawyer than Eric Bana had playing the Hulk. 

_Man, that movie sucked hard,_ Jeff thought as he sat in the conference room of the rehab facility in the county next to Greendale. He was waiting for a nurse to bring his client in so they could discuss the next part of the guy's defense. He heard the door open and an almost scary-skinny, dark-haired girl came quietly in, walking over to a bookcase and going through a shelf of binders.

"Excuse me, but I'm afraid I can't have anyone else in here while I provide my client with legal counsel."

The girl jumped, smacking her shoulder against the bookcase as she did so. She spun around, and Jeff had a strange moment of deja vu: Dark hair, big blue eyes, pale skin. He wondered if she'd been a pizza delivery person at some point.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone was in here." The girl stammered out, practically running out the door, which swished closed on hydraulic hinges behind her.

Jeff shook his head: Junkies. Can't live with 'em, can't usually defend 'em in court, either.  
***  
Five

Annie's cousin from Denver had insisted that she'd like this band, even though Annie had never a) heard of them or b) heard any of their songs.

But her parents were finally letting her go out again, and going to a rock concert screamed anything except 'recovering addict' or 'rehab,' so Annie was determined to enjoy herself.

And the new Annie Edison - the hip, cool, fun Annie Edison, who was starting at Greendale Community College in two months - was not going to let a little thing like not knowing anything about a band keep her from living.

The opening band had been pretty good, some local group with a little bit of a rock-a-billy vibe and some loud groupies by the stage. (Including this tall blonde who was a little too drunk to be out in public, but whatever, the new Annie Edison didn’t judge other people's vices.)

The first half of the headliner's set was OK, although not really to Annie's taste. The male lead singer was a little too Dylan-esque without actually being Dylan (a cardinal sin, if Annie had ever heard of one). The female lead singer was OK, but it was a little generic.

She'd gone to the ladies room at intermission and had just come back to her seat when the lights dimmed for the second half of the set. 

The band began to whistle as the guitar and drum picked up the beat. The woman started singing, and Annie found herself tapping her toes to the rhythm.

Of course, that was when a guy coming back to his seat on the other side of the aisle had to bump into her. She looked up and for a moment all she saw was a straight nose and sad eyes and touchable hair - _monsters under the bed, a $5 grudgingly handed over, a suit and a water fountain in sixth grade, a jerk at rehab_ \- before the guy grabbed her elbow and held on while she caught her balance.

"Sorry. I think I slipped."

"That's OK." Annie hoped she didn't sound as breathless as she thought she might. But in the dark and the noise, she wasn't even sure he heard her. So she smiled, and the guy let go of her arm and stepped back to his seat.

Annie was happy - the new Annie Edison would be comfortable talking to hot guys at concerts; she might even be capable of making eye contact and being assertive. Her cousin knocked into her as she jumped in place, and Annie turned her attention back to the band, though her elbow continued to tingle a little where the hot guy had held it.

And as the song continued, the man and the woman singing back and forth about how they loved each other and how when they were together, they were home, Annie took her cousins hand and started jumping with her.

The new Annie Edison was OK. And she was going to stay that way, if the old Annie had anything to say about it.


End file.
